


You Know What's Really Bugging Me?

by Zozonono



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Identity Reveal, Adrinette Endgame, Adrinette for life, Also not what you think, Assassination Plot(s), Badass Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Bamf marinette, Bee Chloé Bourgeois | Queen Bee, Betrayal, Chat Noir Being Chat Noir, Double-crossing, F/F, F/M, Gaurdians of the Miraculous, Heart Hunter - Free-form, Horse Miraculous, Hurt Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, LOOK WHAT YOU DID, Love Eater destroyed my soul, M/M, Master Fu murder, Miraculous war, Not what you think, Protective Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Redemption, Romantic Face Punching, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Soulmates, Shes out for blood peoples, Teamwork people, Tibet, We traveling people, look what you did ML writers, no beta we die like men, political shit, schemes, shits about to get real, the usual, you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-12-16 20:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21042014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zozonono/pseuds/Zozonono
Summary: Set after the events of Heart Hunter. Master Fu is dead, murdered in cold-blood. And with Hawkmoth prancing around with his newly acquired miraculous, Ladybug knows exactly who to blame.Marinette, in possession of the dragon and ladybug miraculous, is heartbroken and afraid. But that is not the worst of it. The cherry atop this shit-sundae of an afternoon comes in the form of Queen Bee. Chloe, her most loyal fan and former teammate, has taken up against her and is rallying a miraculous wielding army for Hawkmoth.Ladybug has nothing but her wits and secret identity to fight back against the rising tide of evil. The loss of her mentor has the spotted hero turn to the Guardians of the Miraculous for guidance, only, she did not realise the true price she will have to pay for her naiveté.Also... ADRINETTE IS STILL ALIVE! I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP!!! Romantic shenanigans inbound people look alive!!





	1. It's over, isn't it

**Author's Note:**

> Bear with me people!! This is gonna be a bumpy ride...
> 
> This is my first fic ever. I don't have a beta, so please be gentle with me. I am a soft bean.  
Constructive criticism is welcome.
> 
> ... Hopefully, this isn't shit XD

Marinette could only walk away. Leaving the mess behind her, she numbly looked around and noticed little, insignificant things that, though boring on any good day, seemed so fascinating now. Did she notice that small crack in pavement before? She has walked this same road for years, yet she swore to herself that she had never seen it.

How did it get there? Not an akuma, clearly. Her ladybugs would’ve fixed it, if that were the case. It must’ve been here way before Hawkmoth. Maybe before she was born? Maybe it was more recent. Maybe it was just an unremarkably simple, mundane occurrence – like a slight tremor in the ground that fractured the concrete.

_Where did you come from? _But, Marinette knew she didn’t want the answer. She was happy to wonder how that little crack got there in the first place. Some things she was better off not knowing.

She looked up the empty street, thankful no one had yet dared to venture outside after Love Eater. It was better that way. _He could be any one of them. _

Marinette knew she wouldn’t be able to handle strangers looking at her. What a state she must be. Her hair was destroyed by the wind, matted and messy and wild. Strands of dark hair escaped her pigtails and clung to the dried tears on her cheeks like vines.

What face was she making right now? She couldn’t tell. Nor did she care to know. Her body was on autopilot. Her legs leading her somewhere familiar, one foot after the other.

Her earrings, ever annoying and noisy, gave their final warning and Ladybug was gone. Marinette entered the bakery. The ringing of the front door, once a comforting sound, fell on numb ears. She didn’t hear when her mother greeted her as she entered the room. She didn’t even feel when her father hugged her with all the love and warmth he had. She couldn’t let herself feel anything, not yet.

_Don’t make a scene._

She couldn't look her parents in the eye as she mumbled a greeting and wandered out of the room. She couldn’t bear to look at anyone. Not even Tikki. It hadn’t caught up with her yet. None of this felt real. Marinette was a walking shell, looking at nothing but the ground and praying her gaze would keep it from being swept out from under her.

It wasn’t until her trapdoor had closed behind her, and she caught a glimpse of her eyes in the bedside mirror, that the truth, and the fear, and the horror, finally became real. And for one terrifying moment, Marinette was back in that park, staring into the unfocused eyes of her mentor as he laid there, broken and cold, on the grass.

Police sirens screamed past her window. And Marinette broke.


	2. Queen of Mean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chloe is a brat and good-ol' Gabe can't deal.
> 
> Hawkmoth centric chapter. This is during the events of Heart-Hunter, right before everything went tits-up.
> 
> Thanks for the love last chapter!! ＠＾▽＾＠
> 
> Hopefully the rest of this fic isn't complete shit!!

Gabriel Agreste was an ambitious man. He had built a fashion empire from nothing and single-handedly brought an entire city to its knees. Granted, he had no intention of publically laying claim to the latter, but the fact remained that Gabriel would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

But no amount of determination in the world could erase the guilt.

After the unfortunate business with the Guardian, he could not – would not – deny the remorse slowly consuming his heart. There was no justification for what he did. But, if it meant getting his wife back, Gabriel would sell his own soul without a second thought. And now, he was paying the price for his sins… with his sanity.

Gabriel Agreste had done many terrible things in his life, but even he did not believe that he deserved _this_ hell.

“This is ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!”

Hawkmoth stood before Chloe Bourgeois, much like a frustrated parent would, with purple veins threatening to burst out from his forehead. The akumatised Queen Bee was acting like the petulant child she always was, with both hands on her hips and the same scowl on her face that made her mother fly to New York.

“I demand you de-akumatise me, right now!” She seethed.

_I can do this_, he chanted, _do this for Emilie._

“That was not the deal, Miss Bourgeois.” He said, with a calmness he didn’t possess.

“Well your deal sucks, Moth-man! Turn me back this instant!”

Hawkmoth swallowed an infuriated scream. After surviving a torturous fifteen minutes at the receiving end of the brat’s ire, he felt the full weight of his frustrations threatening to demolish his composure. But he could not allow himself to falter. A single twitch of his left eye was the only outward sign of his struggle.

_You can do this, Gabriel! _

_You endured her mother for sixteen years, what’s one more day?_

_Think of Emilie!_

Obviously, he would have to call her bluff. There was nothing she wanted more than to be Queen Bee, and there was nothing he needed more than the Bourgeois devil-child’s co-operation. The anger, the hurt, the pain she felt, and the _strength_ she possessed, was too perfect to go to waste. She would be his ultimate weapon against the superhero duo.

So, Gabriel had to play his cards right. And, luckily for him, his years of experience in the fashion industry had made him a brilliant player. But Chloe was the daughter of the most prominent politician in France, she was raised with a front-row seat to this un-winnable game. He couldn’t risk making an enemy of her now.

Unlike Ladybug and that good-for-nothing sidecat of hers, Chloe knew how to win in this world. It’s a selfish world. A selfish game. And she was at the top, like him, with a birds-eye-view of everyone else’s attempts to play.

In the end, Ladybug and Cat Noir are just pawns in the larger scheme of things. Mindless pieces pushed from one square to the next, compelled into action by the responsibilities that clueless old man forced onto their lives. Stuck running in pitiful little circles, reacting to his attacks but never taking action themselves.

Now Chloe had finally seen the truth and she _knew. _

She needed to stop waiting for _them_. She needed to take action herself. She wanted this, and she knew it. The temptation was right there in her hair.

So, he just smirked.

“Well then, Queen Bee, if this plan is so awful, I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself. After all, you couldn’t disappoint Ladybu-”

“Screw Ladybug! This isn’t about her!” She said, “You want to take her and that alley cat down! YOU want their miraculous. But where have your head-first attacks gotten you, hm? You need a better plan. And I have one.”

Now _that _was interesting… but not unexpected.

From the first moment Gabriel saw Chloe in her crib all those years ago, he knew she was destined for no-good. One of the most irritating memories he possessed of Chloe’s first days in this life was the _screeching_, not from the child, but from the mother, who flat out refused to believe her child wasn’t born with a tiara already on her head and promptly fired the mid-wife.

Not that her husband was much better. Chloe’s father was even more of a doormat for his gargling infant than for his own wife, going so far as to promise his two-day old baby the most expensive necklace he could afford if she _promised _to stop crying.

_A two-day-old baby who couldn’t tell POOP FROM APPLE SAUCE! _

It was then he realised that the girl was doomed. She would have everything she wanted without question and suffer no consequences for her bratty behaviour – like mother like daughter. Even now, with all the _changes _Chloe was undergoing, all the _promises_ to become a better hero, she was willing to turn on her beloved idol the moment she couldn’t get her way.

_People never change._

“Oh? Then tell me. What is your plan?” He said.

Hawkmoth might as well humour her. He had the time.

… And what he heard was worth every second.


End file.
